Co-authored with Ron Unger, this book is a textbook aimed at advanced undergraduates in computer science programs. The book covers major themes of bio-inspired computing, including cellular automata, molecular computation, genetic algorithms, and neural networks. Providing theoretical and coding exercises, this self-contained text requires no previous knowledge of biology.

Table of contents

Introduction and Biological Background

Cellular Automata

Evolutionary Computation

Artificial Neural Networks

Molecular Computation

The Never Ending Story: Additional Topics

Early Reviews

"I read this book in one breath -- it opens vistas on how the fields of computation and biology can inspire each other. I particularly enjoyed the analogies between immune systems and software that fights computer viruses."—Uri Alon, Weizmann Institute of Science, Rehovot, Israel, and author of An Introduction to Systems Biology: Design Principles of Biological Circuits

"The book by Lamm and Unger methodically covers exciting developments in biological computation, offering for the first time a broad perspective of this important cutting-edge field of research."—Ehud Shapiro, The Harry Weinrebe Professorial Chair of Computer Science and Biology, Weizmann Institute of Science, Rehovot, Israel

"This is a wonderful treatise on bio-inspired computation, written from a computer science perspective. The authors are extremely knowledgeable about their subject, and the material they cover is both broad and deep. The book should benefit anyone interested in the connection between computer science and biology, a connection that is poised to become dramatically central to the science of the 21st century."—David Harel, The William Sussman Professorial Chair, Department of Computer Science and Applied Mathematics, Weizmann Institute of Science, Rehovot, Israel